Today's News: Our Take - Did Neil Armstrong Lie About His Moon-Landing Speech?

Wednesday

Jan 2, 2013 at 11:57 AM

TV Guide

In a new documentary, Neil Armstrong's brother claims that the astronaut's famous "one small step for man" moon-landing speech was not improvised, as Armstrong said it was - and also that Armstrong may have flubbed the line.

Dean Armstrong was interviewed for a BBC documentary on the moon landing three months after his brother's death last August, and said Neil drew up a version of the speech months before the Apollo mission in July 1969, according to Britain's Daily Mail.

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Upon landing on the moon, Armstrong was heard saying, "'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," in footage of the event that was broadcast to millions of people around the world. But, the Daily Mail reports, in Neil Armstrong: First Man on the Moon, Dean Armstrong says the line was supposed to be "That's one small step for a man," according to an early draft of the speech his brother showed him. Neil later said that the article was lost in static during the broadcast, according to Dean.

Computer analysis later showed that Armstrong did use an "a" before "man," but up until his death in 2012, Armstrong insisted the lines were improvised after he stepped onto the moon's surface.

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Do you believe Dean Armstrong's allegations? And does it change your view of the moon landing?

View original Did Neil Armstrong Lie About His Moon-Landing Speech? at TVGuide.com

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